1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to parachutes and is directed more particularly to a soft landing assembly for a parachute, which assembly facilitates soft landing through automatic activation of horizontal and vertical velocity reduction prior to impact.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Parachute landing injuries often are caused by high velocity, both horizontal and vertical, at the time of impact of a parachutist with the ground. Horizontal velocity may be caused by wind, parachute oscillation, and/or incorrect application of xe2x80x9criser slipxe2x80x9d. The riser slip technique of manually controlling horizontal velocity is known and used by those familiar with parachute use. However, inexperienced jumpers commonly apply the technique incorrectly, resulting in injury.
In U.S. Pat. No. 6,131,856xe2x80x94Brown, there is discussed a trajectory control system which improves landing location accuracy. The system of Brown includes multiple actuators, each acting on a predetermined number of suspension lines to alter the lengths of the suspension lines to change the horizontal direction of a round parachute.
It is also known to use pneumatic muscles to retract, or uplift, a xe2x80x98chutist just prior to impact, the upward movement of the muscle running counter to the downward fall of the parachute, reducing the overall downward velocity of the xe2x80x98chutist. Again, it requires some skill and experience to properly initiate the retraction of the muscle at the precise moment of maximum effectiveness.
In U.S. Pat. No. 6,050,524xe2x80x94Haggard, there is shown and described a pneumatic muscle in combination with a proximity device which automatically triggers the muscle to decrease vertical velocity of the xe2x80x98chutist just prior to ground impact. While the Haggard patent addresses the reduction of vertical landing velocity, it fails to address the reduction of excessive horizontal velocity.
An object of the invention is to provide a soft landing assembly for a parachute, the assembly including automatic means for compensating for both excessive horizontal velocity and excessive vertical velocity just prior to ground impact.
With the above and other objects in view, as will hereinafter appear, a feature of the present invention is the provision of a soft landing assembly for a parachute, the assembly comprising an altitude sensor mounted on the parachute, a control assembly mounted on the parachute for initiating parachute landing velocity affectors at preselected altitudes detected by the altitude sensor. A first of the parachute landing velocity affectors comprises an automatic riser slip actuator for providing a riser slip, and thereby horizontal velocity reduction at an optimum time and in an optimum direction. A second of the parachute landing velocity affectors comprises an automatic pneumatic muscle retraction actuator for providing vertical retraction of a parachutist, and thereby vertical velocity reduction of the parachutist, at an optimum time prior to impact with ground.
The above and other features of the invention, including various novel details of construction and combinations of parts, will now be more particularly described with reference to the accompanying drawings and pointed out in the claims. It will be understood that the particular assembly embodying the invention is shown by way of illustration only and not as a limitation of the invention. The principles and features of this invention may be employed in various and numerous embodiments without departing from the scope of the invention.